By Winona Whitaker
Secretary, Drake Public Library Foundation
Drake Public Library Foundation has launched a Facebook page. Not that any of us on the board is a social media expert, but we know that this is the cultural norm. Facebook is the way to reach people, whether we like it or not. So we learn to like it. We use what is available to us. We do what is required of us. We learn to use Facebook.
As chairman of the Outreach Committee, I became the administrator of the page by default. I took that assignment seriously. Before launching the page, I read about Facebook and how, as a non-profit organization, we can reach donors using the service. Following these instructions was not the most difficult part of the project.
The most important part of setting up the page was deciding what it was going to be. A page about Drake Public Library Foundation alone would be very sparse. Our activities do not lend themselves to photos or updates. We are more of a long-term organization looking for contributions as beneficiaries of estates, annuities and life insurance policies.
A Facebook page about library activities or raising money for the library would be redundant; Drake Public Library, Drake Public Library Kids, and Friends of the Drake Public Library have Facebook pages of this type. We don’t want to repeat what is already available.
So rather than being a page about the library, we want to be an extension of the library. We will attempt to make our page a place where people can find new information every day, a place that is fun to visit but informative as well. We will find articles, photos and websites that might interest patrons of the library so that those patrons don’t have to search for these things themselves.
Initial posts on the Foundation Facebook page range from links to other library Facebook pages and websites and articles about literary works to library memes and famous and not-so-famous quotes. We want to reach the academically inclined as well as those entrenched in pop culture. We hope to attract people who enjoy prolix polemic on literary subjects as well as those who want short, quick bursts of information or profundity.
And we will periodically remind our readers that our library needs money to function.
Visit our Facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/drakepubliclibraryfoundation. Like it if you like it, share it if you so desire, comment on it if you have something to say. And when you plan your charitable giving each year, name beneficiaries for investments or create a will, remember Drake Public Library Foundation.
Above all, keep reading.
